Saturday, January 24, 2009

Judge Removes Children From Mother's Control

ONTARIO COURTSJudge removes children from mother's controlGirls sent to U.S. deprogramming centre

KIRK MAKINJUSTICE REPORTERJanuary 24, 2009

An Ontario judge has ordered that three girls be seized and sent to aparental alienation centre for deprogramming after their mother wagedan unrelenting campaign to alienate them from their father.

The children - aged 14, 11 and 9 - were transported several days ago tothe U.S.-based centre. After being treated, they will live in the solecustody of their father, a 56-year-old vascular surgeon.

"It is now time for his and the children's fates to be free from [themother's] control," Madam Justice Faye McWatt of the Ontario SuperiorCourt of Justice said in her ruling. "She has shown that she cannot beentrusted with it."

The judge said the children had become so poisoned toward their fatherby the mother's "emotional abuse" that they had lost the capacity tomake independent decisions about interacting with him.

Judge McWatt ordered the 42-year-old mother - a chiropodist identifiedonly as K.D. - to turn over all the children's clothing, passports andpossessions. K.D. was also ordered not to harass the children or gowithin 300 metres of them.

The judge also gave the father, A.L., the power to confiscate thechildren's cellphones, pagers, computers and BlackBerrys to preventtheir mother from contacting them.

"Hopefully, this decision will send a message to other parents of likemind that, if they alienate children, there is a huge price that willbe paid at the end of it all," the father's lawyer, Harold Niman, saidin an interview last night.

"This order was child focused and designed very sensitively to ensurethat children emerge from this process as healthy children," Mr. Nimansaid. "My client is a very decent guy who tried resolutely, under verydifficult circumstances, to have a relationship with his children.Here, the system worked."

Soon after the couple met in 1993, K.D. became pregnant. K.D attemptedto keep A.L. from seeing his first daughter, but nonetheless eventuallyagreed to marry him.

The relationship became more dysfunctional. K.D. closely regulated herhusband's interactions with his child and accused him of sexuallyabusing the child. Judge McWatt said K.D. appeared to be dominated byher mother, a vindictive woman who had regularly beat her children whenthey were young.

K.D. and A.L. soon split up, but had two more children during briefperiods of reunification.

Judge McWatt found that K.D. - whom the judge described as immature,evasive and completely lacking in credibility - on several occasionsprecipitated physical confrontations with her husband and berated himin front of the children.

Judge McWatt said a psychologist who assessed the family noted thatK.D. was obsessive about observing the children when they were withtheir father, retained an unreasoning belief that he would harm them,and "overprotected the three children to the point of infantilizing allof them.

"Eventually, he was not allowed to see or speak to the children - butwas left shouting good night to them through a door of K.D.'s home,"Judge McWatt added. "Most times, he was not aware whether they were inthe house. He did this for up to two years during this period."

The degenerative series of events ended in the children withdrawingfrom their father and refusing to see him.

Hooray, this is great news! I sent copy as I could to every member of the Justice for Children organization, Houston, D.C., Phoenix, and Michigan because they patently reject Parental Alienation and are sexist. They destroyed me and my daughter, now 23, and who still cannot pick up a telephone to speak with me.

Judge Mc Watt should be celebrated for her courage.

We should be sending a copy of this story to every family court judge in the land.Robert Gartner